Tuesday, May 31, 2011

BOULDER, Colo.—Angella Dirks dreams of a day when a knit scarf will be judged by the color of its yarn and not by the content of its fibers.
Which is to say, she can't wait for the nation to embrace dog hair. She and a band of like-minded enthusiasts are doing everything they can to turn garments knitted of canine sheddings from a pet-owner's fetish into a fashion trend. (click below to read more)

If starting a campfire isn’t your strong suit, it never hurts to have some Sterno, the flammable gel in a can, within reach. This “canned heat” has been around since 1893 and takes its unusual name from the company’s founder, S. Sternau. The product really hit its stride during World War I, when the Sternau Company ran a marketing campaign suggesting soldiers going to Europe could use Sterno to heat water and rations, sterilize surgical instruments, and provide light and warmth in the cold, dark trenches. Soon, just about every Doughboy had a few cans in his duffel bag.

2005:W. Mark Felt, former associate director of the FBI, is finally revealed in a Vanity Fair article as “Deep Throat,” the secret source used by Washington Postreporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to uncover details about the Watergate break-in. Felt will die three years later, at age 95.

1991: Minnie Munro, age 102, becomes perhaps the oldest known bride in history when she marries Dudley Reid, 83, in Point Clare, Australia.

2009: Millvina Dean, who at 2 months 27 days was the youngest passenger aboard the ocean liner Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912, dies in Hampshire, England. At age 97, she was the last survivor of the Titanic disaster.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Longest. Fastest. Tallest. Steepest. As theme parks across the U.S. throw open the gates for the 2011 summer of fun, these thrill-makers dare us to climb aboard and test our mettle (and the strength of our stomachs). We scoured American theme parks big and small to find the wildest adventures. The question is: Are you ready for the challenges they offer? (click below to read more)

Shelly Waddell, 36, was cited by police in February in Waterville, Maine, after "a couple of" drivers reported seeing two children riding on the roof of the van she was driving early one morning. Waddell told police she was in fact delivering newspapers to customers, but denied that the kids were on the roof. [WMTW-TV (Portland, Maine)-AP, 2-24-2011]

1911:Ray Harroun wins the first Indianapolis 500 race, driving a Marmom Wasp, equipped with the first rearview mirror, at an average speed of 74.6 mph over the 500-mile course.

1806: Future President Andrew Jackson kills landowner Charles Dickinson in a pistol duel in Logan, Ky., fought over Dickinson’s charges against Jackson’s integrity in a horse race bet and his insults against the honor of Jackon’s wife, Rachel. Jackson is also shot in the chest during the duel but recovers and is never prosecuted for killing Dickinson.

1922: Supreme Court Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Robert Todd Lincoln, the late president’s only surviving son, is an honored guest at the ceremony.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

A zoetrope is a mechanical device that creates the illusion of moving pictures, based on a spinning cylinder in which slits are cut. You look through the slits at a picture on the other side, and the strobe effect of looking through the sequence of slits frames the sequential pictures on the inside. It was invented in about 180AD. That’s a long time ago! The modern way to do it is to use strobe lights or camera shutters to recreate the effect of looking through slits, but however you do it, a zoetrope is still magical.

These may be the only shoes Mom will let you wear in the house: vacuum shoes. Though not the first of their kind, this pair—equipped with two rotary cleaners on the sole of each shoe for sweeping up dust and killing bacteria—has been dubbed the most stylish.

1962:Buck O’Neil becomes the first African American coach in Major League Baseball when he accepts a job with the Chicago Cubs.

1953: New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of Mount Everest, becoming the first men to literally stand at the top of the world. For their achievements, Queen Elizabeth II will award Hillary knighthood and Norgay the British Empire Medal.

1977: Former aerospace engineer Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place because of technical difficulties. Exactly 28 years later, on May 29, 2005, Danica Patrick will take up Guthrie’s legacy by becoming the first woman to take the lead during the Indy 500; she will ultimately finish in fourth place.

(Reuters) - Brussels may be a largely French speaking city but the operator of its metro service has ruled out playing French music at its stations after an experiment drew complaints from Dutch-speaking Belgians.The metro operator decided in 2005 to pipe mostly pop hits at the 69 metro stops, but felt then French or Dutch songs might irritate rival communities in the linguistically divided country. A new experiment has confirmed its view."We decided to try playing songs from an international hit list. This meant a number of French songs and practically none in Dutch and this drew complaints from Dutch-speakers," said metro spokeswoman An Van Hamme.The stations have since resumed a playlist of hits with 70 percent in English, 15 percent in Italian and 15 percent in Spanish. The metro operator said 85 percent of customers said they were satisfied with that mix.Language is a touchy issue in Belgium.

1934:Elzire Dionne gives birth to quintuplets Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Émilie in Ontario, Canada. The world-famous Dionne sisters are the first known quintuplets to survive infancy and will be featured in advertisements, movies, magazine covers and even the Ontario tourist attraction Quintland.

1959: Two monkeys, Able and Baker, lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in the nose cone of a Jupiter missile. When they return home to Earth just 16 minutes later, they will be the first mammals to survive a U.S. space flight. Although Able will die during an operation four days later, Baker will enjoy her space traveler status until her death in 1984 at the advanced age (for a monkey) of 27.

1998: Comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member Phil Hartman is fatally shot by his wife, Brynn, before she commits suicide at their home in Encino, Calif. He was 49, she was 40.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Explanation: How many arches can you count in the above image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance -- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us. The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.

Explanation: Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught continues to move out from the Sun and dim, but should remain visible in southern skies with binoculars through the end of this month. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework.

Americans eat roughly 10 pounds of carrots each year. And we are willing to bet that most of those carrots are of the two-inch long, sold by the bag, baby variety. These popular crunchy snack items are ubiquitous, with some grocery stores carrying (literally) a ton of them. They are relatively new, appearing in stores only since the 1990s. What genetic legerdemain has provided us with this tiny vegetable? (click below to read more)